My first build!

[Darth Gazak]

I just successfully completed my first ever ground-up computer build. It was a terrifying experience, I was extremely nervous throughout the whole process for fear of destroying one of the components, but once I had assembled everything in a four hour ordeal and turned the power on for the first time, I felt an unmatched sense of satisfaction. I had become a man. Predictably, the installation of Windows 7 was a far more awkward task than the hardware assembly.

Here's the specification first:

Casecom black midi tower with front 120mm fan
Coolermaster ExtremePower 460W
AMD Phenom II X2 550 3.1GHz Black Edition
Asus M4A785TD-V EVO Motherboard
4 Gb DDR3 G.Skill Ripjaws 1600MHz
Asus EAH5770 1Gb
500Gb Samsung F3 SATA HDD
Benq 18.5'' LED Screen
2 blue cold cathode tubes for that Blackpool effect
Logitech keyboard
Saitek small factor gaming mouse

All this came to £570, which I think is very good for a system capable of running the latest games. I've yet to bench it, but if someone can recommend a good benchmarking suite I'd like to put it through its paces.

Some of you may have heard about AMD processor unlocking. The Phenom II X2(dual core) is simply an X4 (quad) with two cores disabled, as they never passed AMDs stability tests. However, certain motherboards have the ability to enable the two locked cores, turning the processor into a quad core. It doesn't work with all chips, as some disabled cores are too weak, but luckily with mine it did work. I changed some BIOS settings and unlocked two cores. Windows recognised the extra cores instantly upon reboot, and I was gifted a 3.1GHz quad core Phenom. I stressed tested overnight with Prime95 and it was stable. So i turned my dual core phenom into a quad core for absolutely free, and even saw a frame rate difference when running Crysis. I'm glad now that i went for the Phenom instead of the Athlon X4, because now that it's a quad core I've effectively doubled it's value.

Here's the pics you've all been waiting for:


http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/1897/27022010083.jpg
http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/4098/27022010085.jpg
http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/4923/27022010081.jpg
http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/4493/27022010082.jpg
http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/7239/25022010078.jpg

And yes, I do have the Star Wars trilogy posters on my wall:
http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/9245/27022010086.jpg

Now I just need to get hooked up with Bad Company 2 and I'm good to go. Cannot wait to get on the battlefield with you guys again :D

[TheMunster]

Very nice! Like your desk its very neat :)

Always good when your first build goes well! Enjoy your new machine!

[GFiSH]

Nice one mate. It's a great feeling when you build one yourself for the first time, I still feel a sense of satisfaction every time I successfully upgrade my PC.

[NickyBoyJunior]

Good stuff, it's a great feeling getting your first rig up and running successfully eh? :)

That's a great rig for the price - it'll last you plenty of time. I used that exact same case on my first build too, btw! Also, good work unlocking the extra CPU cores, they'll come in handy with newer games and applications.

Next stop, get rid of that stock CPU cooler!! And then start overclocking the crap outta that processor :) (not sure how well AMD's clock but you should be able to squeeze some extra juice out of it if you have room for temperature increases...oh and if that PSU can hack it. Okay maybe don't overclock it for now :P).

For benchmarking, as you mentioned it, get yourself the latest version of 3D Mark. It's about $5-10 on their website I think. Or you could torrent it for freeeeee, the only downside being that you can't upload your stats. It's very good for benchmarking all your individual components though.